The foolβs life is empty of gratitude and full of fears; its course lies wholly toward the future.
EpicurusRead
If you would enjoy real freedom, you must be the slave of Philosophy.
Interpretation
True freedom comes from a deep understanding and adherence to philosophical principles.
This quote by Epicurus emphasizes that genuine freedom is not merely about doing what one wants but requires a commitment to philosophical thought and understanding. By dedicating oneself to the pursuit of wisdom and knowledge, individuals can attain a more profound sense of liberty that is grounded in rationality and virtue.
In practice
In a university lecture on ethics.
The foolβs life is empty of gratitude and full of fears; its course lies wholly toward the future.
Accustom yourself to believe that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply awareness, and death is the privation of all awareness; therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life an unlimited time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality. For life has no terror; for those who thoroughly apprehend that there are no terrors for them in ceasing to live.
The wise man who has become accustomed to necessities knows better how to share with others than how to take from them, so great a treasure of self-sufficiency has he found.
We should look for someone to eat and drink with before looking for something to eat and drink.
I was not, I was, I am not, I care not. (Non fui, fui, non sum, non curo)
Of all the means to insure happiness throughout the whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friends.
The culture industry not so much adapts to the reactions of its customers as it counterfeits them.
It is a pleasant thing to reflect upon, and furnishes a complete answer to those who contend for the gradual degeneration of the human species, that every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last.
The one place gods inarguably exist is in the human mind.
And even a liar can be scared into telling the truth, same as honest man can be tortured into telling a lie.
I found myself thinking about President William McKinley, the third American president to be assassinated. He lived for several days after he was shot, and towards the end, his wife started crying and screaming, "I want to go too! I want to go too!" And with his last measure of strength, McKinley turned to her and spoke his last words: "We are all going.
There is a door. It opens. Then it is closed. But a slip of light stays, like a scrap of unreadable paper left on the floor, or the one red leaf the snow releases in March
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